This invention relates to a floating breakwater suitable for use in harbors for inhibiting wave action thereby providing a sheltered mooring location for boats and the like.
Floating breakwaters are mooring structures that float at or near the water surface and cause incident wave energy to be dissipated by reflection, turbulence, drag, damping or other suitable means thereby causing wave heights to be reduced on the leeward side.
Conventional floating breakwaters for the above mentioned purpose have included one type formed by a multiplicity of floating tires linked together by chain links, poles or rope and which are designed to cover a relatively large area. While such floating breakwaters have been found to be relatively inexpensive it has also been found that they require a high degree of maintenance and are also particularly susceptible to storm damage.
Another type of floating breakwater includes the use of large rectangular or doughnut shaped concrete pontoons arranged in single rows or double parallel rows to present a flat or planar surface to wave action. The pontoons were normally anchored with piles or moored to anchor blocks with chains or rope. However, it has been found if the wave heights exceeded three feet the use of concrete pontoons was disadvantageous because the articulated joints between the pontoons were highly stressed and often were broken. Thus failure of the articulated joints was common.
In addition to the aforementioned disadvantages the conventional floating breakwaters as described above were subject to unsatisfactory performance in regard to insufficient attentuation of transmitted waves. Also structural failures and mooring failures were common.